Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/1538963
relentless boundary-breaker, Robert Rauschenberg spent his life collapsing the divisions between disciplines, between the material and immaterial, between art and life. One of the most poignant tributes to his radical imagination is "Dancing with Bob," a yearlong performance program that revives two of his most enduring collaborations: Trisha Brown's Set and Reset (1983) and Merce Cunningham's rarely staged Travelogue (1977). Presented by the Trisha Brown Dance Company in collaboration with the Merce Cunningham Trust, the program premiered this June at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina—a fitting venue for an artist whose legacy was built on interdisciplinary entanglements. "Dancing with Bob" doesn't simply celebrate Rauschenberg's work in dance—it restores it to the center of his practice. His earliest champions weren't museum curators or postwar painters. MoMA didn't acquire its first Rauschenberg until 1972, and only then as a gift from Philip Johnson. But from the 1950s onward, Rauschenberg was deeply enmeshed in the world of performance. It provided an early outlet and income. Alongside Cunningham and composer John Cage, he immersed himself in the collaborative life of the stage—not merely as a designer, but as a co-creator of fully realized environments. As Cunningham's stage designer and technical director, he toured with the company, rigged lights, dressed sets, and helped invent a new vocabulary for what visual art could be. Together, they built on the legacy of legendary creative pairings— Balanchine and Picasso, Graham and Noguchi, Cocteau and Chanel—but pushed the form into new, more porous terrain. Or as Courtney J. Martin, executive director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, puts it: "Few artists embraced collaboration as wholly and openly as Rauschenberg. From his early days, he consistently challenged conventional boundaries and reimagined what was possible across media. His work with Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, and Paul Taylor exemplifies the kind of interdisciplinary exchange that shaped his artistic vision." Rauschenberg's success in the dance world stemmed from his gift for listening. He devoted hours to long, winding phone calls with creative partners, taking in their daily thoughts and emotional weather. But his attention didn't stop there. He listened to the city itself—to its debris, its rhythms, its unguarded moments. The Texan-born artist believed that by tuning in to the unique forms and voices around him, he could respond in kind, producing objects that had never been seen in a theater or gallery: a parachute used as a backdrop, a chair worn like a costume. It was during this period, too, that he created the Combines, the hybrid sculptures that have become some of his most celebrated works. A This year marks what would have been Robert Rauschenberg's 100th birthday—a milestone prompting an array of exhibitions, retrospectives, and reevaluations of the late, great American artist. BY KAT HERRIMAN perpetual BALHAR B O U RSH O P S .CO M